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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24431128">you work for us now.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistula_dei/pseuds/epistula_dei'>epistula_dei</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Outlast (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, This is an AU, also there is a kiss and some slime, but only if you count 'trying to make some goddamn sense of this mess of a storyline' an au, you know. for flavor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:01:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,563</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24431128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistula_dei/pseuds/epistula_dei</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Simon prefers to work alone. He prefers it exactly for reasons like this--because even though he focuses, and he can’t hear that telltale murmur, dread has already established a stranglehold.</p>
<p>He does not breathe. He does not move. He listens, still and quiet and rattling with terror, as the sound draws closer, and closer."</p>
<p>The boss pays Simon Peacock a visit while he's on the job.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>miles upshur/simon peacock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you work for us now.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Simon Peacock begins moving even before he realizes that it’s a footstep he’s heard on the house’s back stair, and not a creak as it settles in the midday Colorado sun. He smears the blood on his hands off against his ragged clothes, drops down off the queen-sized bed, pads light as a cat into the shadows in the corner of the bedroom. All this he does approximately without thinking, approximately instantly, half on instinct and half out of years of careful practice. His body knows where to move, and when, even if he doesn’t.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the dark underneath--what is this, a vanity? A desk? He isn’t sure--he listens, still as the grave and half as cold, too. His ears aren’t what they used to be, and are muffled by the layers of gauze and cotton wound over them besides, but he strains them, waiting to catch even the faintest sound from beyond the pink-washed walls. For a long moment, the air is still and warm as any summer afternoon.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Then another creak, from the stoop, and one frail hand reaches into the depths of his jacket for the cleaver still streaked with blood secreted away inside. The back door swings open easily, with hardly a squeak to herald it, and a few casual footsteps clack off the hardwood floors inside. Simon grits his teeth. They are either unaware, or unafraid, and he doesn’t know which he would prefer this </span>
  <em>
    <span>guest </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He does not want to fail his mission. If this person is </span>
  <em>
    <span>unaware, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he will, almost certainly, and fear rises in his already twisted guts at the thought. Paul Marion, he can handle--</span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>handled, without an issue. The man is too good-intentioned to draw his gun, even if firing it would be any kind of advantage in a fight. He’s a pushover, one of those genuinely nice people who Peacock could never quite figure as working for a corp like Murkoff.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>No, he’s more concerned about the </span>
  <em>
    <span>consequences. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And if those footsteps outside are in fact </span>
  <em>
    <span>unafraid, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he might be getting a close encounter with those consequences sooner than he’d hoped.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Simon prefers to work alone. He prefers it exactly for reasons like this--because even though he focuses, and he can’t hear that telltale murmur, dread has already established a stranglehold.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He does not breathe. He does not move. He listens, still and quiet and rattling with terror, as the sound draws closer, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>closer. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The bedroom door bangs open with a crash, thumps into the wall and muffles the sound of someone striding carelessly into the carpeted room. “Oooh,” he hears someone say, half-sympathetic, half intrigued. Simon knows that voice. He just doesn’t know for sure who’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>using </span>
  </em>
  <span>it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He creeps out from under the table, and sure enough, the smirking face of Miles Upshur is waiting for him, careless and looking wholly mundane except for the puddle of blood he has planted the toe of one boot in. As Peacock clambers out from under the table, slowly, Miles laughs at him, at the sheepish way he unfolds himself, like a child who’s just lost a game of hide and seek. It’s a normal laugh--a human laugh. Simon wants to be comforted by it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Peacock!” Miles says, in the warm tone of a car dealer hoping to make a sale. “You’ve been busy!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>To his relief, Upshur turns away from him, directs his sharp gaze down to the red pool at his feet. He squats, reaches delicately for the pale human hand sprawled in the midst of it and lifts it up to get a closer look. From somewhere at the other end of that skinny white arm, Simon hears a low, pitiful mumble, and winces, despite himself. There will be plenty of time for </span>
  <em>
    <span>guilt </span>
  </em>
  <span>later. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Miles thumbs the hand palm-up, uses the jagged stump of his index finger to nudge a fresher, similar amputation. This one, by contrast, is clean--one smooth, straight cut positioned neatly just above the first knuckle. When he presses it, another whimper, sharper this time, rises from the crumpled heap of a human attached to it. There’s something on his face, something </span>
  <em>
    <span>hungry, </span>
  </em>
  <span>that makes Simon nauseous. It’s an animalistic sort of desire.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Peacock tries not to regard the cleaver still clutched in his grip as some kind of traitor, tries to seem nonchalant and not ashamed as he secrets it back into the folds of his coat. Miles still isn’t looking at him, but he’d be a fool to think that his are the only watching eyes in the room.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Aw, you were nicer than you had to be,” Miles laughs. He compares his missing finger to the girl’s, a broad adult’s hand against a narrow teenager’s, and laughs again, like he can’t get over his own joke. Simon watches his jaw work, like he’s considering--what? Like he’s imagining the digit between his molars, crunching once, finally, like a carrot. He tries not to reel with the revulsion. “You’re a good guy, Simon--can I see it?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Miles turns and stands while Peacock’s hand moves over in his pocket. He draws out the finger unwillingly, pinched between two of his own just below the glossy, black-painted nail. The other reporter reaches, snatches it, spends another long moment inspecting it with that same starved look in his eye. Simon never thought he’d be </span>
  <em>
    <span>heartened </span>
  </em>
  <span>by a cannibal glance, but at the very least the impulse is something <em>human</em>. If he’s lucky, it’ll give him a little bit of an idea of who he’s talking to. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, though, Upshur chucks it over his shoulder, onto a clean patch of the shag carpet, and directs his attention to the bed, to the wall looming red and dripping behind it. Simon stoops to get it, to secret it back into the depths of his rags before anyone manages to leave it behind.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Leave it,” Miles barks, abruptly. Simon flinches; the tone is unlike him, more suited to a king than a journalist. He sways with the uncertainty it summons in him, sways with the fear that blossoms up again just behind it like a puff of smoke. Miles Upshur doesn’t talk like that--not unless he’s playing the game, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The game is Simon’s least favorite part of this whole </span>
  <em>
    <span>arrangement, </span>
  </em>
  <span>only in part because it’s played solely at his own expense. There is too much at stake for him to lose, and he’s never been a very good guesser.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The game is simple. Upshur swaggers around like nothing in the world can stop him--because, for the most part, nothing can. But that’s not of his own accord, and the thing coiled up inside him like a snake protecting him has gotten very, </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>good at mimicking him. That </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing </span>
  </em>
  <span>owns Simon Peacock, body and soul (if he still has one), and if he doesn’t treat it with due reverence he might end up getting a painfully close look at his own intestines. Conversely, if he treats Miles like a god his swollen ego will only grow all the larger. Simon’s been at this for almost a year now, and he still doesn’t know which one he thinks is worse.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The best thing, then, is to guess right the first time who it is pulling the strings on that cocksure smile. The problem is that the two of them work like one twisted, two-headed beast, and he’s just one very <em>mortal</em></span>
  <em>
    
  </em>
  <span>man with cracked, jaundiced skin and only one set of ratty, maggot-ridden clothes. The game is rigged, and everyone in the room knows it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Almost imperceptibly, a rattle passes through the still bedroom air. It sounds like dread and insects swarming and it settles heavily in Peacock’s throat as it rustles over the carpet. He resists the urge to crumple in on himself and instead watches obstinately as a thick haze begins to congeal over the girl’s still form, darker and darker until it looks like the lights have gone off in a second skin around her narrow body. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Something </span>
  </em>
  <span>rolls her onto her back, folds her pale arms over her chest like a corpse’s, wicks the blood dripping off her away until she and the puddle are two distinct patches on the floor. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The Walrider is a monster, but it’s not without its finesse. Simon can’t take his eyes off it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“‘You work for u,’” Miles reads. Somehow, he’s made it from the floor to the bed, standing with his feet planted on the plush duvet. The authority in his voice is gone; he’s back to mirth, highlighting the half-scrawled message across the wallpaper that Simon hadn’t had time to complete. “Y’know, I don’t know if this has the right </span>
  <em>
    <span>bite. </span>
  </em>
  <span>We </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>a cult, but I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>we’re not a multi-level marketing scheme.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the heartbeat that Peacock’s gaze flickers over to the host, the swarm vanishes, back into the air. He doesn’t laugh at the joke. Miles doesn’t expect him to. Both of them know he’s too busy settling with the feeling of too many eyes on him, eyes that could have removed themselves to anywhere in the room. He thinks he knows who’s playing the game. He thinks, but he can’t be sure.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“C’mere,” Miles says. Peacock is helpless to resist. Even if this is not the swarm, puppeteering its host, he can’t say no to the Witness Himself. The game is many things, and one of those things is a way to make very certain he never wholly disregards the will of the Walrider’s chosen apostle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stumbles over, fighting fear to keep himself upright. Upshur scrambles back down from the bed to meet him, to leer just a little too close. Their noses are almost touching when he murmurs, “let me see your face.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reluctantly, Simon reaches for the scarf tied around his mouth and pulls it down below his chin. He tries not to dwell on the feeling of some miniscule part of him catching on the coarse fabric and tugging down with it, but the sensation lingers anyway, distant and raw like a dozen papercuts. Both of Miles’s hands dart out the second he finishes moving, grab his face between them. He maneuvers Peacock’s head in every direction, surveying the ridges of dry, twisted skin and the vaguely wriggling forms of maggots eating away the rot beneath. He hums, sympathetically.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, it’s gotten bad, hasn’t it?” he asks. Simon doesn’t want to answer, knows how his voice will sound if he does. He can’t deny that Miles is telling the truth; the decay has only gotten all the faster, and even his bones feel loose and fragile from it now. The Walrider has been watching him for more than a month, waiting until he gets frantic enough to plead for the help he knows he can’t convince it to give him. Simon is desperately close to breaking.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He opens his mouth, but steels himself before any sound can come out. He only half succeeds; a little, breathy sigh escapes his lips, loud enough to delight Miles into chuckling. His knees feel weak. Simon doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to beg, but he will, if he has to. He has an animal’s hunger too, and just like the host it is an all-consuming need to feel <em>whole.</em></span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Miles--or the Walrider, or the two of them together--takes pity on him. He slams Peacock into the bed, maneuvers him by the jaw until his head rests on the girl’s frilly satin pillows. The man shouldn’t be that strong; the machine would have ripped his skull clean off his spine. The weird amalgam of them both at once straddles him, thumbs his mouth open wide and kisses him, grossly, sloppily, with just enough force to make sure he can’t wriggle away.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They could do this any other way. If Simon had been alive, and Miles had been alive, and the Walrider had still been an idea in the head of a mad Nazi scientist, he might not have even entirely hated this arrangement, clumsy as it is. Like this, though, it’s just an awkward way to have his neck craned while oily slime crawls over the host’s tongue, past his teeth, and down Peacock’s throat, a method sure to make him gag. Still, he knows Miles enjoys it all too much for the god inside him to make any step of it any less <em>vulnerable</em>.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The sludge pools in his stomach, ripples out through his blighted organs pulling and sewing and softening the flesh back together. For the first time in weeks Simon feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>warm. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He can’t relax, exactly, but the relief coursing through him is enough to smother the fear, and that’s a respite he’ll allow himself to accept. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It doesn’t last long. Soon enough, Miles is pulling away, and the warmth ebbs out of him, out of the skin and sinew that’s only </span>
  <em>
    <span>just </span>
  </em>
  <span>intact again. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Was that good?” He asks, and kisses him again, this time purely for his own entertainment. “Was that what you wanted?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Simon doesn’t respond, half because he’s trying to savor the sensation of skin that is still of the telltale itch of maggots, and half because he doesn’t want to encourage the host. He doesn’t think Upshur is looking for an answer, anyway. He’s caught up in himself, like he usually is, fascinated as always with the marks he can leave on others. It's hardly charitable--Miles has lofty ideals, but they surely don't extend to his personal life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“D’you think,” he continues, disregarding the lack of response. His voice is a little dreamy; Simon wonders if doing this takes something out of him, or if he just likes the feeling of it that much. “If I sucked your dick, it would work again?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Peacock doesn’t dignify that with a reply, either. That was as far as they had gotten the last time Miles had tried to seduce him; he’d been fixated on the idea of sleeping with a dead man until he learned that the dead man in question couldn’t get it up. And Simon regretted the momentary vulnerability, the minute of weakness on his part that had allowed Upshur to get that far into achieving his dream. That had been early on, when he still entirely remembered what it was like to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He had still been desperate for anything that could make him feel that way back then. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, Miles loses interest. He always does. The host has options beyond the corpse of a man still sprawled, a little dazed, on a teenage girl’s bed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He wanders back toward the door, pausing for one last look at the scene he’s about to leave behind.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You know where to find us, don’t you?” Miles asks. Peacock nods, without sitting up to see him out. Paul Marion is not due home for another hour at least; he has plenty of time left here to finish his grim work. He doesn’t need to rush, not when any sudden movement might be the one that tears his dead skin and lets the rot back in. He pulls his scarf back up and lies there, just a little bit longer.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When he finally sits up again, the Walrider is gone, the host along with it. Simon hadn’t heard them leave, and he figures that’s just as well.</span>
</p>
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